Decalogue for Dummies

Appreciating both Letter of James and Galatians

02/22/2020

James 2:14-24, 26 What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him? If a brother or sister has nothing to wear and has no food for the day, and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, keep warm, and eat well,” but you do not give them the necessities of the body, what good is it? So also faith of itself, if it does not have works, is dead. Indeed someone might say, “You have faith and I have works.” Demonstrate your faith to me without works, and I will demonstrate my faith to you from my works.

Today we find an apparent, but not an actual, contradiction in scripture. All students of the sacred page sooner or later will read and wrestle with what on the surface seems like a clear contradiction in St. Paul’s letter to the Galatians and the Letter of St. James (today’s first reading). St. James says forcefully and uncompromisingly: “What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him?” And, as if to answer his own rhetorical question, James adds later: “faith without works is dead.” St. James articulates one side of the debate between faith and works.

St. Paul presents the other side in Galatians 2:16, arguing very ably as well: “We know a person is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ.” And to add further weight to his argument, he insists later: “by works of the law no one will be justified.” Reading and reflecting on Galatians 2, the great Protestant reformer Martin Luther uttered one of the two famous battle cries of the Protestant Reformation, namely, sola fide,” meaning “faith alone.” The other famous dictum was “sola scriptura,” or “by the bible alone,” (and not by tradition) do we know the truth faith and therefore know Christ. Indeed, Luther even criticized the Letter of James by calling it “an epistle of straw.” We know straw is worth little more than to be thrown in the fire.

Let me say two things about this apparent contradiction that fueled a blazing controversy that smolders down to our own day. First of all, St. Paul’s use of the term “works of the law” is distinctly different from St. James use of the same term when he says “faith without works.” Paul is referring to the hundreds of Jewish laws and liturgies, rituals and regulations, known as the “oral law,” or “halakha.” Paul was not referring to keeping the Ten Commandments as useless for justification. St. Paul did not believe you could profane the Lord’s Day (3rd commandment), or commit adultery (6th commandment) steal (7th commandment) or murder (5th commandment) and still be justified. That’s the Decalogue, you dummy! These are divine commandments, not human customs, and St. Paul was eliminating the second, not the first.

By the way, this is also why in Acts 15 the apostles, including Paul, under Peter’s leadership, decide that circumcision would no longer by required for Christians. Do you know what circumcision is? Would you like me to describe it for you? Just kidding. Circumcision was one of those “works of the law” that does not justify a person before God, and therefore the apostles abolished it. Archbishop Sartain once told me: “John, there are laws, and then there are laws.” That is, some laws you have to keep absolutely and others you can bend or break with impunity, like run red lights in Fort Smith. So, the contradiction between the Letter of James and St. Paul’s letter to the Galatians disappears. When the two apostles use the word “works” they mean two different things.

The second point I want to add briefly touches the second battle cry of the Protestant Reformation, “sola scriptura.” That is, the bible alone will lead us to Christ without the aid of tradition. Now, that sounds good on the surface, but it crumbles under closer scrutiny. We can simply ask one question: Why are some Christians called Lutheran and others called Presbyterian, and still others considered Catholics or Baptists or even non-denominational? The honest answer is that each denomination – even the so-called non-denominational – follows a certain “tradition” of interpreting scripture. In other words, scripture alone – sola scriptura – does not explain itself; someone must help us understand the bible.

By the way, I always love to read Acts chapter 8, where an Ethiopian eunuch is reading Isaiah 53 about the “suffering servant.” St. Philip is sent by the Holy Spirit to evangelize him. St. Philip asks him if he understands what he is reading. The eunuch’s answer is one that we can all share whenever we open and read the bible. He replied very humbly: “How can I understand unless someone instructs me?” In other words, no one can understand scripture alone, including me, unless someone instructs us. And that instruction the Philip provided the Ethiopian eunuch, and that I’m giving you now, and that Luther gave to his adherents in the 1500’s, is simply called “tradition.” Sola scripture is “an impossible dream.”

The Protestant positions of sola fide and sola scriptura sound good but don’t stand up to scrutiny. Keep that in mind as we continue to read the magnificent Letter of St. James, that “epistle of straw.”

Praised be Jesus Christ!